Judo in 2000

Judo , Judo in the year 2000 was highlighted by the Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia. Japan led the winners with four golds, while China, Cuba, and France collected two each. A sharp controversy erupted over the results of the men’s over-100-kg final between David Douillet of France and Shinichi Shinohara of Japan after different winners were indicated by the two corner judges. The referee voted for Douillet—the eventual winner. The Japanese officially protested the decision to the International Judo Federation, but the appeal was denied. Meanwhile, four-time world champion Ryoko Tamura of Japan took the women’s 48-kg category to finally capture her first Olympic gold after getting silver medals in the last two Games.

The new year got under way with the 2000 Paris Tournament, February 12–13, with judoka from seven different countries winning gold medals on the first day. By the end of the competition, however, the Japanese had won four golds and the French hosts three. Cuba came out ahead in the Munich Open Judo Tournament, February 26–27, by winning four matches to three each for host Germany and Japan. On April 29 at Tokyo’s Nippon Budokan, Shinohara won the prestigious All-Japan judo championships—the only major world tournament without weight classes. In the Asian judo championships at Osaka, Japan, May 26–28, Japan won nine titles, but Sun Fuming of China took the women’s open title.